Letters to the editor

Posted: Wednesday, April 26, 2006

By

Growing problem

I am asking that legislators support S843 or HR2421, the Combating Autism Act. Someone I care about struggles with autism every day. The act, as revised in consultation with a unified autism community, will allocate resources necessary for research to develop treatments for autism.

Autism has become an epidemic crisis in American. Twenty years ago, three or four children out of 10,000 were diagnosed with autism. Today the rate is 60 in 10,000.

Our schools are straining under the burden of special education and communities are hard pressed to provide supports necessary for individuals with autism.

The Combating Autism Act would devote attention and resources to this problem. The autism community -- a large and well-organized constituency-- is unified in support of this bill.

ELDA REMINGTON, Topeka

Truth remains

The recent controversy over the newly released gospel of Judas and "The Da Vinci Code" book and upcoming movie should not alarm any historically educated Christian.

The Gospel of Judas is no more reliable history than a biography of Abraham Lincoln written by a still-loyal Confederate relative of John Wilkes Booth would be 200 years after the fact.

The "Da Vinci Code" story is based upon complete historical fabrications. Our culture, though, is largely Christian-biased and politically correct, and we never see contradictions, factual or not, of any other religion, especially coinciding with their major observances.

According to contemporary scholarship, there is far more factual and historical evidence for the New Testament than for any other book from the ancient world. All other ancient books were written hundreds of years after the events they describe. All the books in the NT were gathered and collected by the early churches as they were written and all of them were finally completed and compiled by approximately A.D. 70, 40 years or less after Christ's death.

Books were left out simply because they were unreliable as to late dates, facts or authorship -- not due to Catholic-Constantine conspiracies.

Christian thought and the understanding of who Jesus is has never changed over the centuries. It is the false claims and teaching, cults and conspiracy theories that have changed and will always come and go.

GRIFF ARGO, Topeka

Connection isn't cause

The anti-porn activist quoted in an April 20 article seems to be guided by poor logic. The petition to investigate four Topeka businesses for violations of Kansas obscenity law has support from anti-porn activist Phillip Cosby because: "There's a real connection between criminal behavior -- rape and pedophilia, for instance -- and pornography."

The "connection" that Cosby sees is called humanity. Only humans commit crimes, and only humans consume pornography.

Cosby makes the jump from "connection" to "causation" without using logic.

There is also a real connection between cities and murder. Does this mean we try to put city councils out of business?

Just before he was executed, Ted Bundy told James Dobson that pornography was what led him to be a serial killer, and Dobson, intelligent man though he is, believed it because that was the conclusion he wanted. Phillip Cosby is doing the same thing. Both men display a lamentable disregard for cause/effect analysis.

FRED J. MILLER, Topeka

More change needed

The incidents at the Kaufman group home in Newton demonstrate why group homes are not always a less restrictive or a more therapeutic environment for individuals with chronic mental illness. Fewer staff, fewer residents and less scrutiny by government agencies creates an environment ripe for the kind of abuses perpetrated by Arlan and Linda Kaufman.

As one who has worked in long-term mental health care for several years, I have seen the changes and have known many people who have spent part of those same years living between state hospitals, group homes and nursing facilities. Their accounts do not support the assertion that long-term care facilities represent a more restrictive environment than group homes.

Society created the need for long-term mental health care facilities by determining that individuals with severe symptoms of mental illness, too well to spend their lives locked up in the state hospital, were impossible to integrate into society.

If you desire for those with mental illness to live in a less restrictive environment, there are two ways to attempt this. Agencies that govern NFMHs could insist upon fewer restrictions by changing the focus of their surveys and by stripping away regulations that inadvertently limit personal choice, or citizens of Kansas could come visit their NFMH-dwelling fathers, mothers, sons and daughters and offer to take them home.

There are those with mental illness who do not need to be in a locked unit but still do not have the ability to live independently. That is the population currently served by NFMHs. More than a safety net will be required to phase out such facilities.

TERRANCE YATES, Eskridge

Life saver?

I will be happy to explain how the concealed-carry of firearms is a good thing. The people who will be concealing will complete a comprehensive course on firearm safety. These licensees will be free of any felony, or drug/alcohol/domestic violence convictions and they will have no documented mental health problems.

These are sane, safe people and you face no danger from them. Criminals don't wear their guns on their belt, so why do I have to? To make you feel more safe? You never know, one day a "coward" like me may help save your life. I'm sure when you see the money generated by concealed-carry licensees, you'll request it be returned.